


If I Lose Everything In The Fire

by l_cloudy



Series: Flames on your skin [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Other, Pre-Canon, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 11:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2108589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/l_cloudy/pseuds/l_cloudy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lyanna Stark hadn’t ever wanted a soulmate to begin with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I Lose Everything In The Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Sorta of a follow-up to the [Ned-centered prequel](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1236655). Still ASOIAF, _ergo_ still tears and blood and stuff. Title from [Green Day](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksYp5as6e1o).
> 
> Also, this got angstier than I meant it to.

Lyanna Stark hadn’t ever wanted a soulmate to begin with.

There was no point, she’d told Brandon once, when she had been seven years old and just barely old enough to understand what soulmates were. Brandon had laughed and said that she would change her mind – _all girls are romantic at heart, Lya, wait and see_ – but Lyanna had been a wild thing even then, and she much preferred playing Guardians and Giants with Ben than daydream of southron castles and handsome lords and whatever name might end up branded into her skin.

“It’s not as if I will ever meet him, anyway,” she’d mumbled, and Brandon had mussed up her hair and told her to wait a few years, that she would change her mind.

But she hadn’t.

In truth, Lyanna only had to wait a few months, until the morning Brandon himself got his mark, as pretty much everyone had been anticipating for quite a while. Her big brother was nothing if not precocious in all things, and it was only to be expected that he would get his mark so soon.

Brandon, for his part, laughed when he was supposed to and walked around Winterfell with a new spring in his steps for a few days, showing off the new leather glove he wore, but Lyanna could see beyond his wide grins and boisterous voice. She knew Brandon best than everyone else, after all; but it was his secret to keep, and she did not ask.

Lyanna was eleven when she met Dom Bolton, who was younger than she was an smaller, and yet somehow got her to play at dueling with him and won – that was to say, he got lucky; she had still the better form _by far_ – and then he told her, looking up at her with a shaking voice, that he hoped she would be his soulmate when it was time.

“You’re not supposed to say _that_ , stupid,” Lyanna said, pretending to be mad; but she was more flattered than angry, really, and in the years to come she would almost wish that had come to pass.

She was twelve the first time she heard Father bringing up _Lord Robert_ at the table during a meal. Before that it had all been _young Robert Baratheon_ , and _Ned’s friend Robert_ , and _that Baratheon boy_ ; and she wasn’t quite sure she liked the subtle difference, and all that implied.

“I’m not sure I want to marry,” she told Brandon once, and he made a face at her.

“And what,” he asked, “become a Septa? Father would disown you if you ever joined the Faith,” he joked, but Lyanna shook her head. It wasn’t that, either.

“I want to see the world,” she heard herself say, and how she hated that she couldn’t quite convey everything she meant. She _wanted_ , she wanted so much. “I want to ride at dawn with the wind through my hair and see the if the Titan of Braavos is as tall as they say and if it really never snows in Dorne, and I want…” the whole world; and why not? She was a Stark of Winterfell, and she could have it.

“I want to be happy,” Lyanna said. As happy as she was now, forever.

Brandon stuck her tongue out at her. “Lya, Lya,” he pointed a finger at her, mockingly. “And then you say you’re not a romantic.”

He stood up to walk the length of the room, and suddenly he was sitting next to her, leg brushing against hers, one arm slung around her shoulders. “Shall I tell you a secret, little sister?

Brandon blew some air against her hair as he spoke, and she elbowed him for his troubles. “ _Stop that_.” Then. “What secret?”

“I don’t really want to marry either,” he said, and she could feel him shrug. “But we do what we must, and enjoy what we can.”

Lyanna was about to tell him how stupid that was, because he was a _man_ and he _could_ go wherever he wanted, and he didn’t have to leave Winterfell after his wedding like she did; but that was when he spoke again. “And do you want to know another secret?”

And he brought up his right hand to take off his glove.

Lyanna snapped her eyes shut.

“ _Stop_ that,” she repeated, this time with more vehemence. “What in the seven hells are you doing?”

“Don’t be a child, Lya,” he scolded her. _Scolded_ her, of all things. “Open your eyes.”

“Don’t be disgusting, Brandon,” Lyanna said. “Keep it _on_. I don’t want to see your…” she paused. “I don’t want to see your _thing_.”

“They do it in the South all the time. Open your eyes, Lyanna.”

“They also fuck boys in the South,” she said, eyes still firmly closed.

“Lyanna Stark!,” Brandon began, before exploding in a fit of laughter. “Do open your eyes, Lya,” he repeated, more softly this time. “It’s important.”

 _Gods_ , _Ned would go crazy if he only knew_ , Lyanna thought, and then opened her eyes.

Brandon’s mark, the most intimate symbol any man could have, was short. Only four letters, in a scrawl that was as messy as Brandon’s own penmanship. “Sara,” she read out loud, musing. _Sara_. A pretty enough name, Lyanna decided, nicely symmetrical if so oddly… out of place. “Sara,” she repeated, glancing at her brother. “Do you know anyone named Sara?”

But Brandon shook his head and smiled a tired smile and that was when Lyanna _knew_. “No, and I doubt I ever will,” he said, even though she _understood_ now, and there was no need to say it again. “This is not the name of a noblewoman.” Too short, too simple, too _common_. _Oh, Brandon._ “Whoever she is, we could never be together.”

And that was when Lyanna Stark understood that her strong, handsome brother, heir to Winterfell and pride of the North, was destined to be as unhappy with his lady of Riverrun as Lyanna herself would be would her father marry her to some southron lord; forever striving for something else, forever disappointed, forever left wondering.

When Lyanna Stark was thirteen years old, she woke up one morning with a sharp pain in her right hand; and _of course_ it would be the right, she’d always done thing her own way and wrote and ate and held her sword with her left, so it was only natural it would be her _other_ hand that bore the soulmate mark.

When Lyanna Stark was thirteen years old, she woke up one morning with a sharp pain in her right hand; and briefly entertained the idea of calling for the maester and getting fitted for a glove without even once stealing a look at the name of the _most important person in her life_ , or so Old Nan said. She thought about it; but she knew herself better than that, knew how curious she could be, how she would never resist the idea of looking, if even for a brief moment. She knew she would look at what she could not have, and lived her whole life unsatisfied.

So she took out a candle and held her thumb above the flame and it _hurt_ , gods it hurt so much, but she bit her sleeve and looked out the window where the snow was falling, light and white; and it still hurt, but less so, and.

And in the stories knight and heroes fought and bleed and.

And then they won, and when they came home, they never left again and.

And what was a little bit of pain, after all and.

And Lyanna hoped it would scar, and that she would never have to see the name she hadn’t wanted in the first place and.

It did scar, in the end; after the maester rebuked her soundly and she had to beg and cry and plead not to make him tell Lord Rickard what exactly she’d done; and once the healing paste came off all she could see was a patch of angry red skin and half a letter that could have been the _D_ of Domeric Bolton, but probably wasn’t.

It looked like a _P_ , she decided, or maybe a _R_ ; and Lyanna was glad she would never know.


End file.
